‘A Virginia Treasure’: Susan Clarke Schaar Announces Retirement After 52 Years Serving the Senate
As Susan Clarke Schaar announces her retirement after 52 years, Virginia celebrates the woman who helped keep its Senate running—and made room for other women’s stories.
RICHMOND, VA—For 52 years, the names on the office doors changed. Elections brought new faces, new arguments and new priorities to Virginia’s Senate. Susan Clarke Schaar kept showing up to help the institution do its work.
On Tuesday morning, October 20, Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell announced on social media that Schaar, the longtime clerk of the Senate, had announced her retirement.
“Bitter sweet morning today in Richmond,” Surovell wrote on Facebook, reporting her decision after 52 years of service to the Senate of Virginia.
“She’s a Virginia treasure.”
For Virginians who follow the votes but rarely see the work behind them, this is a retirement worth pausing over. Schaar’s career has been spent helping the people elected to represent communities—including Alexandria and Mount Vernon—turn the daily business of government into an orderly, public record.
And some of her most lasting work can be found outside the Senate chamber, among the women whose stories she helped bring into the light.
A career that began in 1974
Schaar joined the Senate Clerk’s Office in 1974 and was elected clerk in 1990, milestones documented in a 2006 General Assembly resolution honoring her. That means 52 years with the office, including 36 years in its top job.
A Westhampton College graduate of the University of Richmond, she built a career in a role whose modest title does not begin to explain its responsibilities.
The clerk is the Senate’s chief administrative officer, elected by its 40 members. According to the General Assembly’s description of the office, the job includes preserving Senate records, keeping its daily journal, referring legislation to committees and overseeing personnel, technology and facilities.
In other words, someone has to make sure the machinery works while everyone else is debating where it should take Virginia.
The office also helps introduce young people to public service through the Senate Page Program, Model General Assembly and resources for Boys and Girls State. Its work reaches beyond lawmakers to students and citizens learning how to participate.
“They really keep this place running!”
Two years ago, the Senate paused to recognize Schaar’s first half-century of service.
In a March 9, 2024, Facebook tribute, Sen. Timmy French put that longevity into perspective for his constituents: Schaar had started working for the Senate during former Sen. “Doc” Truban’s first term.
French described senators and then-Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears praising both Schaar and her staff for work that continued long after the legislative session ended.
“They really keep this place running!” French wrote.
He also announced that senators would make a donation in Schaar’s name to the Virginia Capitol Foundation. It was a fitting tribute to someone whose responsibilities have included preserving the institution as well as helping it operate.
Helping Virginia remember its women
There is another way to understand Schaar’s contribution: visit the Virginia Women’s Monument at Capitol Square.
A 2019 University of Richmond magazine profile recalled then-Sen. Walter Stosch reassuring supporters of a monument to women’s achievements that he would introduce a resolution and “Susan will take care of the rest.”
The rest turned out to be years of work.
As a Women’s Monument Commission member, Schaar helped advance an idea championed by the late Em Bowles Locker Alsop. The process involved historians and scholars, focus groups, fundraising and reviewing 36 design proposals.
The result, Voices from the Garden, honors women through life-size bronze figures and a glass wall bearing additional names. It makes space for stories that had too often been left out of the public landscape.
“We’re very proud of what we have accomplished,” Schaar told the university magazine.
In a 2023 interview with WTVR CBS 6, she explained that the monument’s purpose extended beyond famous figures to “the unsung heroes, people who did something for their region, or the state, or their community.”
That appreciation for the people behind the familiar names feels especially fitting today.
Service that reached beyond Virginia
Schaar’s colleagues across the country also recognized her expertise. She served as president of the American Society of Legislative Clerks and Secretaries in 1997–98, a role recognized in a General Assembly resolution.
In 2005–06, she became the first Virginian to serve as staff chair of the National Conference of State Legislatures, according to the legislature’s 2006 commendation.
Those honors speak to professional accomplishment. But the tributes from people who worked alongside her offer the simplest explanation of why this moment matters: for decades, she helped keep the place running.
Surovell’s initial announcement did not specify an effective retirement date or a successor.
For now, the news belongs to Susan Clarke Schaar—a public servant who spent more than half a century tending to Virginia’s Senate, while helping ensure that other women’s service would be remembered, too.
This is a developing story. Additional details about the retirement will be added as they become available.
